iMac G3 500mhz HD upgrade size?

Hi, three years ago I helped my mom get a G3 iMac 500mhz with dinky 20gb hd. Upgraded her to 768mb memory but now with 10.3.7, she's getting the spinning beachball a lot. I'd like to upgrade her to 1 gig and a new harddrive but don't know if her machine can take a 160 gig 7200rpm Hitachi deskstar? Would her machine only recognize 120 gigs? I seem to recall this limitation -- anyone know about this?

Also, because this is an academic iMac, she has cd rom only! What kind of cd/dvd player could I get for this slot loading machine?

Hi, three years ago I helped my mom get a G3 iMac 500mhz with dinky 20gb hd. Upgraded her to 768mb memory but now with 10.3.7, she's getting the spinning beachball a lot. I'd like to upgrade her to 1 gig and a new harddrive but don't know if her machine can take a 160 gig 7200rpm Hitachi deskstar? Would her machine only recognize 120 gigs? I seem to recall this limitation -- anyone know about this?

Also, because this is an academic iMac, she has cd rom only! What kind of cd/dvd player could I get for this slot loading machine?

Click to expand...

IT will work with the drive ... but only work with 128 gigs... I somewhere heard you could partition it.... (to make each one under the 128 limit) but i think that idea was a fallacy..

Hi, three years ago I helped my mom get a G3 iMac 500mhz with dinky 20gb hd. Upgraded her to 768mb memory but now with 10.3.7, she's getting the spinning beachball a lot. I'd like to upgrade her to 1 gig and a new harddrive but don't know if her machine can take a 160 gig 7200rpm Hitachi deskstar? Would her machine only recognize 120 gigs? I seem to recall this limitation -- anyone know about this?

Also, because this is an academic iMac, she has cd rom only! What kind of cd/dvd player could I get for this slot loading machine?

Click to expand...

The 7200 RPM drive will most likely produce more heat, however the iMac is designed well enough to accommodate the extra. I recently replaced the drive in my iMac DV with a 7200 RPM drive.

I would purchase a firewire external CD or DVD burner to use with the iMac.

7200 RPM, 8Mb cache, FDB, Very quiet in operation and low running temp. It's not the fastest drive available, though it's hardly slow and it will be alot faster than the OEM drive currently in there (which is 5200rpm) The quietness you will notice alot, especially with the fanless design of the iMac. The drive produces less heat than the factory fit HD, so you don't need to worry. And Seagates are pretty reliable in my opinion.

You can go for larger drives, but as others have mentioned you will only see up to 128Gb. The partitioning trick I seem to recall is a myth. I would advise to stick with the 120Gb drive.

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